Morrilc (FA
   DE. MOEEILL'S
      Gentleman's

MEDICAL ADVISER
GUIDE TO HEALTH,
     &C. &C.
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       BOSTON, MASS.
          1869.
^ 
 
H'
vV   ^
                  THK

   Gentleman's  Medical  Adviser,
                  AND
        SURE GUIDE TO HEALTH
                  AND
             LONG  LIFE.
       DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THE AUTHOR'S
            XEW SYSTEM
/                 °F            /
        BOTANICAL PRACTICE /
   IN THE CURE OF ALL DISEASES INCIDENT TO EXPOSURE,
           EARLY INDISCRETIONS, KTC.

       By FREDERIC  yi&ftftflJ,.. Sf
                    (  T?
m
''-' ft    .2
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MHO MAY BE CONSULTED DAILY >W{I *. JoKTff T^ ,     ,
        NO. 4S HOWARD STRr.r.T. ' • -T -■■ ^       J
          BOSTON, MASS. 
  Entered according to  Act of Congress, in the year
I860, by
           T/REJJERIC MORRILL, M.D,

Tn tbc  Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massa-
                     chusetts. 
THE  GENTLEMAN'S
MEDICAL  ADVISER
                PART  FIRST.

     MANY years ago, when I first entered upon
      my professional career, in the city of Bos-
ton, as a new and comparatively unknown candi-
date for distinction and success, I found time to
compile several medical treatises bearing upon a
certain class of diseases always greatly prevalent
in our large cities. These works, the fruits of care-
ful study and investigation, contrary to any ex-
pectations which I had dared to form, became at
once exceedingly popular, and edition after edi-
tion was rapidly exhausted. Whilst they served
in part to give publicity to my name, as one par-
ticularly devoted to the treatment of diseases
arising from  imprudence and exposure, and all
other complaints of the genital organs, the  ex-
tensive range of study and examination of  au- 
i
THC oextxemax's
thorities and cases necessary to prepare me to
discuss  the subject properly and  intelligibly,
almost unconsciously to myself, created that in-
terest in my mind as to induce me to select that
branch of medical science as a specialty, and to
make it the leading object of my future investi-
gations.   Finding myself thus theoretically and
practically prepared to combat these dread ene-
mies of man's pleasure and comforts, as well, per-
haps, as any one of my age, I determined to break
away from those restraints which a false notion of
dignified professional propriety had imposed, and
at the risk of ostracism from the brotherhood, and
to be classed with those who are considered as
interlopers, I resolved to advertise  my abilities
and to make myself useful in a sphere wherein  I
felt satisfied that I could successfully compete
with any of ray brethren.  The consequence has
been that, instead of a limited and precarious prac-
tice, extending only to a few personal friends,  I
have, each succeeding year, seen added to my list
of patients persons from every section of the coun-
try, as well as from the adjoining British Prov-
inces and foreign lands.   Completely  absorbed
in the cares and duties imposed upon me by
this increase of patronage, I have not been able 
              MEDICAL ADVISER.            h

to revise and  republish those works to which, I
believe, I am in a great degree  indebted for my
early success in obtaining so large and remuner-
ative a practice as I now enjoy.
  The^e thirty years of close application to my
profession have  yielded an experience which,
added to theoretical attainments, acquired when
professional calls did not press  so heavily upon
me, have, I believe, fully qualified me  now to
yield to the repeated solicitations of my friends'
and patrons, to prepare, for their use, a  manual
which shall serve them as a  guide in those cases
of accident and exposure to which all are liable,
whatever may have been their training and cul-
ture,  or however strong their sense of moral
and  religious obligations, to avoid temptation
and  excess, in whatever  shape  it may assail
them.
  Amidst all of the vast  catalogue of diseases
which afflict the human  race, there are  none
which reach so  many, and sting so sharply, as
those denominated  " sexual."   From the strip-
ling, hardly arrived at the  age of puberty, up to
the hoary-headed patriarch of three score years
and ten, we find that none are  exempt.  Even
the infant, before it hafe been expelled from  the 
0
THE GENTLEMAN'S
body of its mother, is too frequently tainted, its
blood corrupted, and its  fair form mutilated by
a disease communicated to it by its erring pa-
rents.  Did this great social evil limit its effects
merely to a temporary disability of its  immedi-
ate victims, and were it apparent onl}" in the hos-
pitals and doctor's apartments, where it seeks to
assuage  its pains and find a cure for  the evils
arising from it, though severe and often revolt-
ing, its consequences would be slight in compari-
son with what  they really are.  Were such dis-
eases merely local in their character, the actual
cautery, and the dissecting knife, might be relied
upon for their extirpation; but, unhappily, this is
not so.  When once the  infection has  gained a
foothold upon the human system, it is not mere-
ly those parts most immediately exposed and af-
fected, but, like a fiery devil, it pervades every
part of the bodily organization.   It seizes  upon
the blood,  the  very life  of man, and  along its
currents it carries  the infection through every
vein and tissue; and coursing its way  through
the spinal column  it seizes upon the citadel of
man's power, the brain, and if unchecked and un-
subdued, paralyzes and enA'ebles the organs of
thought as well as action. When the evidences of 
             MEDICAL ADV1SKB.            <

such destruction are daily presented to our view,
can the physician overestimate  the importance
of the mission to which he is called, and can he,
if possessed of a spark of manly feeling, shrink,
through a false estimate of professional pride, to
give to such cases the very best efforts  of his
professional skill ?   Human health and life are
equally dear to all.  The wealthy merchant, the
venerable clergyman,— the centre and delight of
a highly cultivated and fashionable congregation,
—the millionaire, reclining at his ease in his sump-
tuous " stone front," may, and do, from their posi-
tion and power of their wealth, command the at-
tendance and exercise of the best skill the country
can produce;  and the petted favorite  of such ex-
alted patronage is looked  up to as particularly
fortunate, and eminence is awarded to him, simply
because Croesus and Dives head the list of his pa-
trons.  The equally, and frequently more skilful
physician, who, with a strong and  manly heart,
and firm hand, nerves himself to a daily and hour-
ly contest with disease, the result  of libidinous
desires and unholy passions, is looked upon too
frequently with scorn, and treated as  an empiric
because he advertises  to the world  his  ability
and willingness to treat those  cases which his 
«             THE UEMXEMAN s

more delicate and sensitive brethren regard with
contempt.   For  myself, I am ready to alleviate
human misery and distress wherever it may be
found, and in whatever form it may present it-
self.   I have seen as much sincere goodness, as
much  downright honesty, elevated  and high-
toned  principle and friendship in the unhappy
victims of venereal and syphilitic diseases, as in
any people I have had to deal with.
  For the rescue of the miserable victims of in-
temperance  laws are  enacted, which  have en-
grossed the time and attention of legislators, ses-
sion after session; bodies  of executive officers,
costly to be maintained, are organized and set
in motion; retreats and asylums are established,
and whole  communities and  states  are  con-
vulsed, from center to circumference,  with  the
exciting questions of prohibition or non-prohibi-
tion, license or no license, and the advocates of
temperance  are canonized as the  apostles of all
good.  Yet  a social evil of far greater magni-
tude than any caused  by mere intemperance in
the  use of alcoholic and stimulating drinks, stalks
abroad in our midst at noon-day, at eventide,
and in the still watches of the night,  selecting
its victims from the young,  the beautiful, and the 
             MEDICAL ADVISE!!.           ',1

lovely.  The heart of society is cankered at its
core, and he who devotes himself to  assuage,
eradicate, and stay this  great evil, is denounced
as a quack, or perhaps  shunned as  an  ignorant
pretender.  For one I am willing to bear the im-
putation, so long as I know that I am benefiting
my fellow men.  Thirty years of professional in-
tercourse  and  dealing  with  this  unfortunate
class of patients, have taught me lessons which
neither books nor the  more learned of my fel-
low men could furnish;  and the best tribute of
thanks  which I can  render  them  now, is  that
whilst in the full meridian of life, with  faculties
ripened and matured, and in the enjoyment of a
full and lucrative business, I devote the leisure
hours that may be afforded me in furnishing to
them and all others who may be  interested in
the subject, such advice, counsels, and directions,
as will  enable  them to avoid those dangerous
strands and  breakers upon which so many have
suffered shipwreck.
  By this  I  do- not wish to have it understood
that I  design  to  furnish such  a book as  will
enable any one  to " doctor himself."   Very far
from it.  Of all the mischiefs resulting from any
of the diseases  incident to early imprudence 
10
THE GENTLEMAN'S
excessive  indulgence, or unclean sexual inter-
course, not the least are those  consequent upon
the application of supposed remedies unadvised
by  a  competent physician.  There can hardly
occur any degree of infection, however slight,
but at once  demands the inspection and the
treatment of one  able  at a glance to see the
extent of the danger, and restrain its further
ravages.  Men are crippled, their features  and
limbs  distorted  for life, simply because of some
self-application of corrosive and dangerous min-
eral preparations by those who have become in-
fected; and who, in the first moments of alarm,
have,  with the view to a concealment of their
condition, resorted to these poisonous and deadly
drugs for relief.  Cases which, even if let alone
to pursue the work of destruction unmolested,
could  not have assumed  more dangerous or dis-
gusting forms, have, by a dangerous and unwise
meddling with, been driven into the system, dis-
tributing the virus to every vital part, until, from
what  was at  first a mild attack in its simplest
form,  the  victim is now enveloped in ,a flame
from  which he can be  rescued only by  the
boldest and most courageous efforts.
  Neither is  it my  intention to  pander to  a 
MEDICAL ADVISER.            11
prurient and debased curiosity  and appetite,
which seeks gratification in the perusal of books
devoted to subjects ordinarily supposed to come
within the range of the physician's or midwife's
care and attention exclusively.  My design will
be simply to point out the various disorders and
complaints  incident  to  youth  and   manhood,
through an abuse, over-indulgence, or unguarded
indulgence of the generative organs.  To do this
I do not deem it at all necessary that I shall enter
into all the minutiaj  of their  anatomical struc-
ture, nor into  a pathological description  and
inquiry as to the origin  and character  of the
diseases  themselves.   I  am  not writing  for
doctors nor learned  professors  of physiological
and pathological science, but for those who, un-
learned and unskilled in all these matters, are,
after once satisfied that help is requisite in their
cases, to  be restored to health, if at  all, by the
counsels and guidance of another, and that, the
physician of their choice.
   Setting aside  for the present all allusions to
hereditary taint and disease, and addressing my-
self only to those presumed to  have received
from their parents at least an ordinarily healthy
and  strong constitution, I believe I  do not err 
12           THE UEVTEEMAX'S

in the opinion that, not one in fifty have escaped
the influence of evil  example, or, through such
faultless  physical training as not to have  fre-
quently indulged in,  if not become addicted to,
the habit of masturbation.  I make use of this
term because I believe it to be generally under-
stood by the most  artless and inexperienced.
The artificial forms  of living, the universal use
of stimulating food and drinks, the intimate and
unguarded association of the sexes in all the vari-
ous forms of social and fashionable life have been,
and are such as to lead to a premature develop-
ment of  the virile passions and desires which,
implanted in our natures for the sole purposes
of procreation and the  perpetuation of  the
human species, have, under this unnatural and
premature  stimulus, suggested  the artificial
and ready means of relief in self-pollution and
abuse.  Whilst the boy has been tenderly and
carefully trained  in  everything else  necessary
to the  full and useful development  of all  his
faculties, by a fatal mistake, arising through
ignorance on the part of parents and guardians,
this great evil has been ignored,  and left to pur-
sue its deadly ravages unchecked.  Physiology
and the laws of life, the very  uses of the orrans 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
l:i
of procreation, other than for purposes of bodily
evacuation, have been studiously concealed from
our youth, and  they have been left to acquire
from associates  and evil example a knowledge
of vices and habits which, before they are aware
of it, and long ere their natural guardians have
any suspicions of it, have  laid the foundation of
a train of evils and diseases which, if unchecked,
will inevitably lead to early decay and death.
How  many of  these  victims  have I  known
whose broken down constitutions, indicated by
the faltering gait, the vacant stare, and almost
idiotic  countenance, are pointed out as objects
of commiseration because of  a  supposed too
close application to study and an overtasked
brain,  and the  cause  of their failure  in life
attributed to anything but the  true one.  I do
not now remember that out of the thousands of
cases in which I have been consulted, and where
this vice  has  been the chief, and perhaps the
only cause of disease and trouble, but it has
turned  out  in  the  course of my  examination
that this habit has been indulged in innocently,
and from an entire ignorance of its  deadly and
fearful  consequences.   "Had  I  have known,
had I have been forewarned,  what a world of 
14           THE GENTLEMAN'S

misery and wretchedness  I should  have es-
caped," has been the invariable  exclamation of
those from whom I have " wormed out," as it
were, the secret history of their past habits and
indulgences.   My reader, let me put the ques-
tion to you.   It is not necessary that I should
put you  under a rigid examination and extort
from you, by an artful system of professional in-
quiry, whether you are faultless in this respect.
It is not necessary that I should  inquire of you
whether  the weakness in the back, the pains in
side and breast, the troubled sleep, the lascivious
dreams, the fading and disordered  vision, and
the wavering mind, the disinclination to society
and gradual failure of all manly power of which
you complain, are attributable  to this vice  or
not.  You know.  Memory  and reason  have
not yet become unseated,  and the past is open
before you; and  you  may trace, as in an open
book, the records of those early indulgences and
youthful  indiscretions which have, step by step,
conducted you to the precipice upon which you
now stand. It is to  you these pages are ad-
dressed.  You have long felt that you were on
untenable ground, and that everything before
you was dark and dreary as the  grave to which 
            MEDICAL ADVISER.           15

you looked forward  as a last and almost wel-
come  refuge from the pains and miseries of life.
Were the consequences limited only to yourself,
the pangs  of  remorse,  as well  as  the pains
arising  from  your  numerous  ills,  might  be
patiently, even if hopelessly borne; but if, as ia
most likely to be the case, there is another  in-
terested in your happiuess, or what is equally
as unfortunate, whose happiness is dependent
upon your fulfilment  of plighted vows for recip-
rocated affection, how wretched is your lot. By
your own hands you have placed a barrier be-
tween yourself and the accomplishment of your
brightest earthly hopes.   You  know yourself
unequal to the performance of all the duties of
manhood in the interesting relation to  which
you have pledged yourself, and you shrink back
appalled at the very  idea of exposing your im-
potency and lack  of ability honorably to com-
plete  the  engagement you have contracted.
Evasion, despair, dishonor, suicide and death are
by turns contemplated, until, in the horrible con-
flict,  the body becomes a weary burden, and
reason  no  longer guides you by Its dictates.
You  struggle on  like the blind  man  in the
morass, and your every effort  at escape only 
l(i           THE  GENTLEMAN'S

sinks you deeper and deeper into the slough in
which you are engulfed.  Young man, this is
no fancy sketch.  It is  the secret  history of
thousands and tens of thousands, and among
whom you are perhaps numbered.  If this is so,
then it  is time, and more than time, that  you
availed  yourself of  the  helps which  medical
science  holds  out  to rescue you from the  im-
pending destruction of your mental und physical
faculties, and to restore you to yourself, to your
friends,  and to society, a renovated, sound,  and
saved human being.
  I think it not needfid for me to go through all
the details of the steps through which you were
gradually initiated into all the mysteries of un-
lawful pleasures, nor the symptoms of those dis-
eases which too surely are the ever-ready attend-
ants  upon their votaries.  I would  not  entirely
suppress the ardors of youth by ascetic rules  nor
monastic vows. I understand human nature,
and take it as I find it, and hence I have a large
charity  for those who,  impelled by irresistible
desire and strong temptation, are led into dan-
ger.   But I  do most earnestly wish to benefit
them, nevertheless.
  My desire  to make  myself thoroughly under- 
             MEDICAL ADV1SEK.           17

stood and not  commit myself to the charge of
indelicacy and the use of language which might
exclude this treatise from unconcealed and open
perusal, renders it somewhat difficult for  me to
express myself upon all those interesting  topics
embraced within the scope of the investigations
upon which  we are now engaged. I have called
your attention to the  great vice of solitary in-
dulgence, and have incidentally referred to it as
resulting in creating impediments to marriage,
dangerous  to health, and difficult  to be sur-
mounted. I must go further, and instruct you
that, however great  and serious these obstacles
are,, that if they  are  properly attacked  before
they culminate in entire impotency and imbe-
cility,  there are remedies lately discovered by
myself which,  in connection with proper diet
and regimen, the powers of the body thus pre-
maturely weakened  and dormant may  be re-
stored  to their former activity and strength: and
that, too, without resorting to any of those offen-
sive mechanical means and  appliances  which
formerly were  so much relied  upon.  Neither
am I an advocate of constant drugging, and the
administration  of stimulating cordials, to effect
this object.  I had tried all the usual and well
               2 
18            THE GENTLEMAN'S
known remedies hitherto regarded as infallible
and specific in their re-invigoration of prema-
turely-exhausted manhood, and was pained to
find that with them, as  with almost all tonics
and  stimulating  preparations which have  a
direct tendency to, and action upon those parts
supposed the most to need their immediate ap-
plication and restoring qualities, the  reaction
Mas too violent, and that their repeated  use
gradually  undermined  the very foundation of
power, until finally there was nothing left to an-
imate and  excite.  During many years  of my
practice I  had this difficulty  to contend with.
The medicinal virtues  of every vegetable sub-
stance,  embracing roots, barks, flowers, and
berries, were • carefully investigated  and ascer-
tained, and whilst they yielded many most valu-
able additions to my stock of remedies and to
our national pharmacopcea, none of them came
up to my wishes in imparting, without the sub-
sequent reaction, those restoring and strength-
ening powers so desirable to be secured, and
without which no amount of care, careful nurs-
ing, diet, with all the adjuncts of well-timed and
regulated hours for sleep, exercise, and recrea-
tion, seemed to be available.-  Not content with 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
ID
ransacking the whole botanical kingdom of this
country  I expended thousands  of  dollars,  in
pushing  my investigations to other and  more ,
distant climes, until at length my persistence
and perseverence were rewarded in the discovery
of what I had  so long sought,— a purely vegeta-
ble preparation of surpassing curative and tonic
properties, as  healthful, soothing, and beneficial
in its operations upon  the  mind and nervous
system as it is almost magically efficacious in  its
healing powers  when administered as a remedy
in  the   cases  to which  I  have just alluded.
Alone, or its  judicious mixture with other well
known   remedies, enabling   it to produce  its
effects just in proportion to the  nature and  te-
nacity of the  disease1, has satisfied me that, in it
the great  desideratum  in accomplishing a per-
fect cure of  almost all the  infirmities arising
from  the indulgence of solitary vice, as well as
all nervous, sexual, and cutaneous diseases, has
been  at  last  discovered.  For many years,  at
great expense, I have laid in my supplies of this
invaluable product of nature;  and although I
have  resorted to its use  in  thousands of cases
where the genito-urinal organs were affected, or
where, through them, other parts  of the systei,i. 
■Jn            JUL gentleman's

or the general health of the body has suffered,
I have rarely failed to find it accomplish all, and
even  more,  than I had hoped for; and here let
me remark, that in a general way I am  no ad-
vocate for, nor  do I countenance  the use of,
strange and unfamiliar remedies.  Neither do I
deal in or use such.  But the fruits  of my own
researches and discoveries in the botanical king-
dom, which is alike free to all, I must be allowed
to enjoy. If I  have, prompted by a greater
zeal, and animated by a stronger desire for suc-
cess and professional distinction, and by the ex-
penditure of much valuable time and large sums
of money, secured a valuable adjunct  in the
cure of disease,  I feel  no compunctions what-
ever in retaining in my own hands,  during my
life time, the exclusive  use and  emoluments
arising from my discovery.  Certain I am, that
no human being besides  myself possesses my
secret.  The various forms and proportions  in
which I have administered this invaluable rem-
edy,  and the astonishing as well as gratifying
results produced^by it,  have  led  me to still
farther  prosecute my experiments  with it  in
almost every stage and grade of seminal and
sexual disease where the propriety of tonic and 
             MEDICAL  ADVISER.           21

invigorating remedies are called for; and having
used it now for  many  years, in both sexes, of
almost every age, am prepared to say that it is
far superior to any  other remedy  of  which I
have any knowledge.   That  most distressing
form of seminal debility, which results from an
involuntary and  frequent  discharge  from the
urinary organs, is checked by it  as  if by the
hand of Omnipotence itself, whilst  the cheerful
and exhilirating effects which it produces in all
the functions  of life, especially upon  the brain,
equalizing and moderating all the passions, and
allaying  all the  causes of undue  excitement,
that those parts and organs, hitherto  enfeebled
through  excess and disease, have time to re-
cuperate,  and are  enabled to  resume  their
natural functions.  Although I can  well say,
with a distinguished writer upon these topics,
that I have found no royal  plan of accomplish-
ing a speedy or certain removal in all cases of
the maladies under consideration  without^ the
exercise of great patience and care, and that no
man who possesses true medical and surgical
skill will confine himself exclusively  to  a few
medicinal substances that  may  have acquired
notoriety as specifics, yet I eantruly say that in 
THE gentleman s
:i more extended practice than has been vouch-
safed to  the  generality of the profession, since
my discovery of the remedy alluded to, I have
fnet with greater success and fewer defeats in
subduing this fonn of disease than I had before.
its great recommendation  is,  that, under  no
possible circumstances can it do any harm, and,
unlike the common  and  standard  medicines
almost always given  and  regarded as specifics,
especially by those charlatans who infest every
large city, it does not, and cannot of itself, create
inflammation and apparent disease to enable an
unscrupulous medical attendant  to excite the
fears  and frighten the patient into a protracted
course of treatment, having  for  its object only
the creation  of a  heavy bill to the  pecuniary
benefit of the practitioner.
  Patients, however, must not be led  into the
error that diseases of this kind are to be subdued
instanter.  In a large  majority  of  cases  the
physician is not called upon until the patient,
especially if a novice  in these matters, has not
taken some time to speculate upon the nature of
the complaint that is upon him; and is often  re-
strained by feelings  of shame and mortification
from making  his condition known, or has tried 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
2:"!
his own skill or some tavorite remedy suggested
by a friendly companion, in expectation that he
will  be  spared  the infliction as well as the ex-
pense of a professional consultation in regard to
it; or, if he has resolved upon the latter course,
precious time is lost in solving his doubts as to
whom it will be most advantageous to apply to.
The ordinary family  physician, whose  counte-
nance and ways are as familiar to him as one of
his " own folks," is not a moment to be thought
of.   His first promptings will be to call upon
some one whose exalted standing and reputa-
tion as a physician, and position in society as
a  high-minded and honorable man,  would be
all-sufficient  not only to ensure proper medical
treatment, but in whose keeping his character
and reputation would be safe from exposure; for,
it is a painful truth, that the suspicion of being
the  victim of  secret  disease is  too  often  the
cause of exclusion from society and the coolness
and neglect of former friends.  This whole pro-
ceeding is the result  not only of inexperience,
but is imprudent and unwise from beginning to
end. In no other affair of  importance do we
act  with so little  discretion, and  are  so little
yuided by the  prudential maxims of every  day 
24
THE GENTLEMAN S
life. Ordinarily we would not apply to a learned
and philosophic professor of speculative science,
however wide his fame, to repair our chronom-
eter or to a polish a diamond, simply, because he
is not supposed to possess the  mechanical skill
and ingenuity  necessary to the performance of
such a  piece of work.  We seek out our ship-
wright, or carpenter, tailor, and other mechan-
ics, each according to their  several  trades,
because  as  such  they are known to be skilful
and reliable.  Such  should  also be our  course
in regard to our  physician; and in the medical
and surgical treatment of those terrible and life-
destroying diseases of which we are now speak-
ing, we should only resort  to  those who have
gained their knowledge  of all  the peculiarities
of these dread diseases by long and careful study
and an exclusive attention to them, enabling
them from experience, rather than books, to con-
quer the destroyer in all the varied forms it is
accustomed to present itself.
  During the thirty years of my practice in this
city the records of my business will show a  list
of nearly one hundred thousand patients, com-
prising  those  affected with every  stage  and
degree of private  and sexual  disease, and cer- 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           2~)

tainly  not one of  the many who are  styled
advertising doctors can boast of such a volumin-
ous epistolary  correspondence as I have been
obliged to keep up  in  connection with this  ex-
tensive business.  Although, as a general rule, I
destroy all communications where it  is evident
that the writer is particularly anxious for con-
cealment, yet in many  eases of especial interest,
where  the letters only  embrace matters con-
nected with the case and cure, I have  preserved
them as grateful recollections of the  benefits I
have conferred upon  my  fellow man, and as
honorable trophies  of  my  success.  Were  not
the fashion a hackneyed one, and open to  the
charge  of fabrication for mere effect, I  should
reproduce here more of this correspondence, to
confirm what I have said in regard to the happy
and astonishing cures  performed by me, chiefly
through those  remedies known only to myself,
and discovered by me through years of sleepless
toil, self-denial,  investigation, and  unsparing
pecuniary outlay.  But I forbear, well knowing
how liable such  displays are to be misunder-
stood, and their truthfulness  misrepresented by
the envious  and  unsuccessful.  I shall freely
avail myself of this opportunity, however, before 
20           THE GENTLEMAN'S

I conclude these pages, to reproduce  some of
the testimonials of the press, which at various
places  and at different times has liberally and
generously commented upon the uniform great
success which has attended my practice. 
MEDICAL  ADVTSER.           -"
             PAkT  SECOND.

    THUS far I have limited my appeal chiefly to
     the young, and  have referred only to the
milder forms of secret disease, which, although
less fatal in their immediate effects, if promptly
and  properly attended to, yet do, if neglected,
mismanaged, or  tampered with,  lead to  most
distressing and  often fatal  consequences.   I
shall now proceed a degree  further,  and ap-
proaching the full-grown man, speak of the more
terrific forms of this destroyer, such as it presents
itself in  all  its power of evil and destructive
might.  If happily the youth  has escaped, '' as
by  fire," and  in the  consciousness of renewed
powers and a purified body, has arrived at man-
hood, and assumed the cares and responsibilities
of a  husband and a father, he is still liable to the
same temptations; and whatever may be said of
the folly or guilt to be attached to  his  conduct, is
again the victim of unclean and diseased sexual
association.   This time, however,  it comes upon
him, not in the simple form of a suspicious excre- 
 28           THE gentleman's

 tion of a viscid matter, staining his apparel and
 tormenting him  in the performance of one  of
 nature's offices, but has seized upon him in some
 one of those  formidable  forms  which, if un-
 restrained, even at the moment of attack, is most
 certain to eat its way to and through every part
 and organ of the machinery of life, until  its
 hapless victim is  laid out a poor deformed and
 crippled wreck of humanity, a loathing to him-
 self and a burden, and perhaps scorn to all with
 whom he is  connected.  When  the individual
 finds  himself in  this  condition the instinct  of
 self-preservation at  once, prompts him to fly to
 the first  suggested  means of relief; and every
 country practitioner has ready at hand a mercu-
 rial preparation of some kind, found in the books
 ever since the art of printing was invented, and
 the science of medicine and surgery came out of
 the  hands of  barbers  and apothecaries, and
 assumed  the character of a separate and  inde-
 pendent profession.  It is useless to say that, in
 ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, these old
 stereotyped prescriptions and  remedies which,
 fifty years ago would occasionally effect a  cure,
are now, owing to the constant change which
has been going on  in the nature of these dis- 
MEDICAL  ADVISKI!.
20
 eases, as inert and ineffectual to produce a cure
 as simple water itself; and  any one may now
•daily witness in the mutilated figures of many
 a passer  along the thronged  thoroughfares of
 our large cities, the horrid eft'ects of mercurial
 preparations which have only succeeded in over-
 powering  one  disease by the substitution of
 another none  the  less fearful, and  equally as
 destructive as  the first.  As I  am not writing a
 pathological guide for the use of the  medical
 practitioner, it is not my design, as before in-
 timated, to confuse and embarrass the general
 reader by a methodical classification of  symp-
 toms and diseases.  This is too often attempted
 by those who, by the  use of technical and scien-
 tific terms, seek only to display their own attain-
 ments, and to lead  others to think that they are
 wondrous wise.  My effort will be to make my-
 self understood in plain,  simple language, so
 that  the  afflicted may readily comprehend the
 true nature of his situation, the evils with which
 he is threatened, and the proper course to pursue
 in the  painful  emergency in which he is placed.
 In the progress of this horrible disease to which
 I am now calling your attention, no part of the
 human system  escapes contamination nor  fails 
30
THE GENTLEMAN S
to sympathize with the local parts more immedi-
ately attacked.   The virus is almost immediate-
ly transferred by the touch, by the irrepressible
propensity felt to handle  and examine the dis-
eased parts, to almost every other portion of the
body  susceptible of contagion or  innoculation,
until the lips, nose, throat, eyes, and every open-
ing an£  cavity of the  body is contaminated by
the deadly virus, whilst within, it is being circu-
lated  by the vital current, the  blood, into all
parts  of the system.  At  this stage of the dis-
ease no  palliating  nor half-way measures can
stop its  ravages.   Self-treatment,  guided  and
directed as it may  be, by a consultation of the
whole list of  medical authorities,  is  utterly
powerless. The caprices and changes  charac-
teristic of the complaint are such  that,  only
the experienced practitioner can detect its  true
character, and direct with certainty the artillery
necessary to its overthrow.  There is hardly a
day passes but  I am consulted by more or less
of those who, neglecting the first approaches of
this insidious destroyer, are so far  enveloped in
its  embraces as to  them  it appears almost im-
possible  to be cured.  But, when I have exhib-
ited to them the incontestable evidences of the 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           81

cures  performed by me,  of cases  in  many
instances  as  severe  as their own,  they  have
manifested a joy which no  pen can describe.
Certainly it would have been better for them, as
it would be more agreeable to me, had I have
been consulted at an earlier period;  but, never-
theless, whatever may have  been the cause of
neglect or delay. I am positive that  the disease
cannot long resist the almost immediate, power-
ful,  and searching operation of the remedies
which I apply.  So far from resorting to  those
painful and severe caustic applications hitherto
so common, and usually regarded as indispensa-
ble,  I proceed by mild, emolient, and soothing
preparations  for  external   treatment, which,
aided by an internal  administration of my great
remedy, prepared in just the proper proportion,
in connection with other  healing and balsamic
productions  of the  vegetable kingdom, all in-
fl amatory  action is at once quietly subdued.
The tonic  properties of the  medicine is at once
imparted  to the system, the digestive organs
become cleansed and regulated, and perform all
their functions  like  a  charm; and the curative
and healing process  goes on quite rapidly, and
in exact accordance with nature's laws.   By a 
THK GLNTLEMAN's
strict adherence to the conditions necessary to
be observed  in  the process of treatment,  it is
absolutely impossible that any failure or disap-
pointment  should  occur;  and  what  is  most
singular, where  once this rare preparation has
taken  an effectual hold upon the  system, not
only does it drive off the loathsome  disease, but
it  fortifies  and  strengthens the  parts hitherto
affected and enfeebled, so that in a  wonderfully
short space of time they are restored to their
pristine vigor,  and  no  traces  remain of the
malady which so recently  threatened so much
devastation and rfftn.   Of all ages and classes of
men upon whom the ravages of the sexual dis-
eases are to be feared,  there are  none to whom
it is so dangerous as to those in the  meridian  of
life.  This is  doubly the case when  the individ-
ual is  at the  head of a family.  Not limited  to
himself, his wife, the lawful partner of his bosom
and the mother of his children, is in danger of in-
fection. Their natural protector and guardian, he
finds himself the bearer in his own body of a virus
more to be dreaded than that of the deadly upas.
His social and domestic enjoyments are broken in
upon by his foul fiend, and if he once  yields to the
solicitations of love, and in an unguarded moment 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           ;!:!

gives way to its gratification, the envenomed shaft
has reached another victim, and beings yet un-
born are not only possibly, but probably, made1
to share in  his infection.  There is nothing more
certain than that this disease is thus propagated
from sire to son, through many generations, and
that scrofula, in almost all the hideous  forms in
which it developes itself, such as tubercular con-
sumption,  weak, sore, and  inflamed eyes,  the
early falling off of the hair, deafness, chronic and
inflamatory rheumatism, spinal  diseases of all
kinds, are more or less frequently the direct con-
sequences of the parent's indiscretion and disease,
years  before his  ill-fated offspring ever saw  the
light of day.  When I have indicated such fear-
ful results as  springing  from a single  cause, it
cannot be necessary  that I should again urge
upon my reader the  absolute necessity that, if he
has unfortunately " been caught," there  should
neither be delay in  his struggles to escape,  but
that his strength should not be wasted in mis-
guided and  misdirected efforts  to attain  that
end.   A single  false  step  may plunge him in
irretrievable misery and  bodily ruin.  No  art
can restore the mutilated face, the palsied limb,
the vivacious countenance, or the sparkling eye,
         3 
■'A
THE GENTLEMAN S
when once this disease has  passed over them,
and  has left the impress of  its poisonous seal.
There  is  no rescue or salvation except in the
immediate application of curative means; and all
medical history and testimony will tell you that,
up to this time, with all ordinary practising phy-
sicians, there has been no specific remedy found
for this disease  upon which any reliance could
be placed, except in those rare cases in which
mercury, in some of its many forms or combina-
tions with other hardly  less  deleterious  sub-
stances, have beeji found effectual, and then only
in overpowering the disease  by substituting, in
very many instances, another and almost equally
dangerous one  in its  stead.  Every person of
common intelligence is aware that what are
generally termed  mercurial  diseases  are  of
themselves the  most  distressing,  troublesome,
and  protracted  of  all  those the physician is
called upon to treat.  Painful and even disgust-
ing  sores, eruptions, and discolorations of the
skin,  extreme  susceptibility  to   atmospheric
changes, sharp and  shooting  pains in the joints
and  limbs, frequent recurrence of torpidity in
all the digestive organs, dyspepsia  with its long
catalogue of horrors, exfoliations of portions of 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           o-J

the bones, particularly in those parts especially
exposed to observation; these and many more,
too numerous to mention, are but a part of the
serious evils arising from the indiscriminate use
which has been made of this  powerful drug  in
the cure of private diseases.
   With what joy  and gratitude, then, should
mankind  hail  the  discovery of a system  of
thorough  cure, unattended by any such dangers
as I have  described.  A system so mild, so posi-
tively certain in its effects, and withal so harm-
less as to be utterly incapable of doing injury in
any ease whatever.  And then, again, there are
other consequences not less serious and regreta-
ble, entailing unhappiness and discontent in  all
subsequent life.  Impotency, that bane  of mar-
ried  life,  is not an  infrequent consequence of
not only  the diseases to which I have alluded,
but of the very remedies  which have been un-
wisely and unskilfully administered for their
cure. How many there are who, in every other
respect seem admirably  mated, and in every
way constituted to render each other happy, but
 whose  desolate  households  indicate but  too
 surely the cause of domestic disquietude, or an
 aching void, which can only be filled by healthy 
:ji>           THE gentleman's

and  beautiful offspring.  Whatever may be the
worldly circumstances  of those who have  en-
tered into the marriage relation, the perpetua-
tion  of themselves in their children is  one of
the very first promptings of their hearts; and
failing in this, the domestic hearthstone becomes
cheerless, and  the gifts of  fortune,  however
numerous, are  comparatively  valueless  and
lightly esteemed.   It is in cases of this kind
that my remedies have proved  of priceless and
inestimable  value.  It matters not from what
cause the  inability may arise, whether from pre-
vious disease, or  the injurious  effects  of un-
wholesome and poisonous drugs, or the weaken-
ing and disorganizing effects of early habits.   I
have never yet failed to reconstruct and restore
the enfeebled powers  to effective vitality, and
to enable  the husband to be in a condition not
only fully to enjoy all  the pleasing concomitants
of wedded life, but to  realize his dearest wishes
in the ability to propagate  his species,  and to
raise  up children  to  cheer, bless, and comfort
him in his old age.  That this can be done most
happily and effectively, without resource to any
painful surgical operation, without resorting  to
those tonics  and stimulants which, after pro- 
             MEDIC AT. ADVISER.           ?>7

ducing  a momentary  excitement,  leaves  the
patient  more exhausted and enfeebled than be-
fore, I  know;  and there are  hundreds  now
living within but a very  narrow circuit of the
place I now write, who  can  bear joyful testi-
mony to the truth of my assertions.  Let no one
despair of help, for I  assure  him that, unless
nature  herself  has been wanting in her usual
gifts, and some such unwonted  calamity  as
emasculation has taken  place, I can most cer-
tainly restore all his lost or waning powers, and
lender  him happy  and hopeful in that home
where before he was cheerless and desponding.
That this  deficiency or loss of power may be-
come more obdurate, and less easy to overcome
by omiting  seasonably to  resort to curative
means, is  also  certain;  hence the necessity of
attending to it  as soon as the difficulty is known
to exist.  Delay only renders its removal a more
protracted and aggravating process, whilst  it
cuts short days and years of bliss which might
otherwise be enjoyed.  Persons who find them-
selves incapacitated to a full fecundative exer-
cise of all the virile functions, should never rest
satisfied short  of a complete  restoration of all
their faculties; and  to effect  this through the 
8S           THE GENTLEMAN'S

safest and  surest means should be to them a
matter of the gravest consideration.   Almost
every locality, and especially our large  cities,
are literally crowded and overrun with unprin-
cipled adventurers, whose pretensions  and abil-
ities are equally preposterous and absurd; men
who  like those who
  " Steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in."
enshroud their former  insignificance and ob-
scurity in some  name,  the  possessor  of  which
may  at one time have had some distinction as a
medical  practitioner.   These  imposters and
scourges of society  waylay and  beset the in-
valid and the suffering at every turn, and most
unfortunate is the credulous and unsophisticated
wight who suffers himself thus to be entrapped.
Not one in fifty of them can boast of a  single
degree of medical knowledge or skill beyond
that  acquired perhaps as servant to  some in-
valid, or gained from a superficial study of some
old book of useful receipts which has alone con-
stituted his whole medical library.  Of this class
of pietenders you cannot be too guarded.  Of
such it may be truly said :  " They allure with
a look, a wink, a nod. Hell  does not contain so
foul a fiend nor earth so fell  a foe; the helpless 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
so
and  unfortunate are  their victims,  murder  is
their employment,  and death  their sport."  I
would  not lay such  stress upon this caution
against empiricism  and quackery, did not every
day's experience more fully demonstrate to me
the  vast  amount  of  mischief perpetrated by
these reckless  adventurers.   Cases in which,
had  a  thoroughly  skilled specialist been  con-
sulted  in the  first instance,  would, with but
little loss of time,  and but moderate expense,
been rapidly made to  give way to the proper
medical treatment, have, through sheer ignor-
ance, been made to assume forms so  disgusting,
repulsive, and dangerous, that I have long hesi-
tated to assume the responsibility of prescribing
for them.
   Intimately connected  with  those  diseases
having their origin in  impure sexual intercourse,
are others, which,  though not traceable  to the
same cause, are none  the  less  troublesome and
very often the means not only of aggravating
the  sexual diseases, but tending to complicate
them and perplex the medical attendant, as well
as to  create greater  distress  and pain  to the
sufferer himself.  Watery collections in and be-
tween  those parts  constituting the  genital or- 
40
THE GENTLEMAN'S
gans in man, are  frequent; and  sometimes the
causes are so involved in obscurity that the
most skilful surgeons are often at a loss how to
account for them.   This difficulty, known to
medical men under the name of hydrocele, has
ever been regarded by the profession as  incura-
ble by medical treatment, and only yielding to
a surgical operation.  Palliatives are resorted
to,  and the inconveniences  arising from it
obviated in  part by drawing off the contents of
the sac by a trocar, and by such other mechan-
ical appliances as the ingenuity of the prac-
titioner may suggest.  The many  aggravated
cases of this kind which I have met with in my
practice, the almost  insuperable  bar presented
by it to a successful treatment of a contagious
disease affecting the parts at the  same time, the
reluctance  to  which the patient would listen
to any suggestions as to the employ of " instru-
ments " or mechanical appliances for his relief,
spurred me on to every effort in my power to
relieve this very painful and  dangerous disease.
Nor have my researches been  in vain.  I  have
discovered remedies, by the proper administra-
tion of which this complaint is made to disap-
pear almost as rapidly as  mist before  the morn- 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
41
ing sun.  The clumsy and expensive  apparatus
hitherto applied, the dreaded trocar, the  stimu-
lating  injections  of former days, are entirely
dispensed with, and by a medicine prepared only
by myself, a process of absorption is engendered
by which the disease is radically cured,  almost
unconsciously to the sufferer.  And although I
am constantly prescribing  for and treating it
with the most signal  success, and to the entire
relief and satisfaction of my patients, and  hun-
dreds  of my medical brethren are aware of the
fact, jet, if applied to,  themselves, and inquired
of as to their ability to cure it, reply,  that medi-
cal treatment would be unavailing.   In view of
these facts I feel impelled, from a sense of  duty
to  suffering  humanity,  to  invite  every  one
afflicted with this complaint to apply to me for
relief.   I will not merely refer them to testimo-
nials of undoubted authenticity and credit  as to
what I have  accomplished in this respect, but
will convince them, by means easily  to be  com-
prehended, that  this great desideratum in the
healing  art has  at length  been discovered.  I
know  to what extent I incur the liability to the
 charge of egotism in making this assertion, and
the slowness of the public  to give  credit to 
42           TnE  gentleman's

claims of extraordinary discoveries,  especially
in the treatment  of those complaints which
have  so  long baffled the skill of the most re-
nowned physicians;  but they  must  remember
that such has been the case in every age of the
world, and that  Darwin,  and  Harvey, and
Je'nner, are not alone in having been the huts of
ridicule  and  persecution because  of their dis-
coveries and efforts to  benefit  mankind by the
introduction of new  modes of warding off and
curing disease.  No  dread of ridicule, nor the
opposition  of those who consider themselves as
exclusively authorized to prescribe for disease,
shall  ever deter me  from thus boldly making
known my  ability to benefit my fellow-men.
  In  the foregoing, so far  as I have addressed
myself to those of middle life, whose physieal
organs have become matured, and in  whom few
or no organic  changes are likely to occur for
many  years at  least,  I have  called attention
chiefly to  such complaints  and infirmities  as
immediately accompany, or closely follow, those
self-engendered or contagious  diseases, the re-
sults  of  careless and promiscuous connection
with those of the other  sex.  I have alluded also
to the impediments  which it creates to  the 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
4:1
formation of happy and  permanent domestic
relations, and to the satisfactory performance .of
all that is meant and intended in the marriage
rite; and  if  I  have not  catalogued all the
miseries and evils flowing from the causes set
forth, it is not that  I regard them as of minor
importance, but it is that I have indulged the
hope that no one in his sober senses,  with such
dangers impending over him as those which I
have described, would, for a single hour, delay
application to  the  proper source  for  relief.
Varied, aggravated and accelerated as they are
in the different forms they assume  by  reason
of temperament, diet, constitutional defects, and
the usual pursuits of business Or  amusements,
there is no perfect standard for measuring their
intensity, save in the long-tried skill of practical
experience; and I do not here purpose to load
your  mind Avith complicated  details and  nice
distinctions which to you would be entirely un-
intelligible, or, if understood, you would  not be
able to derive from them any solution  to the
difficulties and dangers which encompass  you.
This  can only be afforded you by  competent
medical aid; and I now, in the full confidence in
my ability to relieve you of every trouble with 
44           the  gentleman's
which  you are assailed, either now or in the
prospective, invite you to try those truly heal-
ing remedies of which I am the discoverer  and
only possessor.  One of the greatest mistakes is
that in which the victim imagines that if he
discontinues such violations of the  laws  of his
being,  and becomes more temperate,  regular,
and abstemious in the indulgence of his  passions
and appetites, that disease will disappear, and
the recuperative powers of nature will remedy
every evil.  But it must be borne in mind that
disease is not  self-cering.  The causes
which  have done the mischief and inflicted the
injury  must be removed before anything in the
whole  range of medical science can cure you.
So long as there remains lurking in  the system
any relics  of those fatal effects of the poison,
engendered either by  disease itself or the im-
proper remedies hitherto taken for your relief,
you are  in  danger.  Not only protracted  and
exquisitely painful complaints, such as chronic
rheumatism, spinal affections, and the  develop-
ment of tubercular diseases, attack and  threaten
you with all their untold horrors and  dangers,
but death  itself may warn you with its quick,
sharp,  paralytic stroke, that it is nigh  at hand, 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           4.")

and that the time for all earthly aid, with you,
has passed forever.  I must  not omit to name
another result of excessive sexual  indulgence,
the diseases  incident  to  it,  and the maltreat-
ment to which  they  are so  often subjected:
premature exhaustion and decay: and this leads
me to the third part of this little treatise, in
which I design to address a few words to those
who, having passed through the age  of ripe
manhood, have  entered upon that period of life
when, in the course  of nature, the  natural
powers begin to  wane, and the passions and
appetites  become  less  clamorous in their de-
mands for gratification, or if not, in whom the
physical capacity  necessary  to  that purpose is
diminished  through former  excessive  indul-
gence, or as a consequence of the emasculating
effects  of the vile compounds  to which they
have been subjected through the ignorance and
stupidity of those whom they  have consulted
when requiring medical treatment; and I may
 as well remark here as anywhere, that the early
 loss of sexual power  may very often be justly
 attributed to an excessive indulgence  in other
 than in the unrestrained gratification of  the
 desire  for sexual  intercourse.  The early and 
40           THE gentleman's

indiscriminate use of stimulating and alcoholic
drinks,  an excessive use of tobacco, by which
its nicotine qualities are absorbed and taken in-
to the system, especially  with those who lead
sedentary and inactive  lives, are  among the
many causes of  premature decay;  and  when
this period arrives, and full consciousness  is felt
that such is  really the case, what can be more
depressing to the mind, or more calculated  to
inspire an aversion to life, and to regard all its
hitherto  anticipated  pleasures  and  promised
blessings as a base delusion and a cheat ? 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
47
             PART  THIRD.

    AFTER the attainment of the ages of fifty-
     five or sixty years, in man. the generative
powers gradually diminish, and, declining with
increasing  years,  at the  age  of seventy and
thence onward, cease to  be able to accomplish
the objects either of gratifying the passions or
the perpetuation of his  species.  The depriva-
tion, however, of these  pleasures  are not the
only loss which he  feels, and  over  which he is
called  to  mourn.   With  the  symptoms  of ap-
proaching  decay,  and the  waning  forces  of
manly power, he is  sensible also of a decline in
those mental and executive faculties by the force
of which he  has hitherto been enabled to over-
come obstacles to success, and to acquire wealth
and position  in the world.  It is true, that occa-
sionally we meet with  men of even three score
years and ten and  upwards, who display in all ,
their movements and calculations but few or no
evidences of senility, and  who, up to  a very
advanced period in life, seem to enjoy almost un- 
48
THE GENTLEMAN'S
broken powers  both of mind and body.  I do
not refer to that class of old men, the fag end of
whose lives are devoted to the gratification of
the baser passions  of avarice and gain, which
outlive every other  sentiment,  but  to  those
whose bodily powers, carefully husbanded  and
preserved, have suffered no untoward deteriora-
tion by the habits and practices of youthful in-
discretions  nor  the  excesses  of middle   age.
These, having performed all the requirements of
life's duties well, justly, in the evening of its
journey pass calmly  onward to its close, unin-
terrupted and unassailed by any of those  evils
which embitter the declining years of the great
majority of our fellow beings.
  These  last, unhappily, in almost every stage
of their progress, are constantly requiring the
fostering care of benevolent hearts and willing
hands to direct and lead them over the, perhaps,
too dreary and barren wastes spread out before
them, and to some extent the  aids of science to
assist in reinvigorating  their dormant faculties.
1 have devoted much time to this interesting
study, how best to  restore  to its former pos-
sessors the  lost powers of virility, so as to enable
them at a comparatively advanced period of life 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
40
to enjoy  again, to a  rational extent,  all  the
pleasures of ripe manhood with those of the op-
posite sex.  Pursuing  my  investigations  upon
strict scientific principles, and  aided  by  the
ample means for experiment which my extensive
practice has afforded, I have arrived at results
as gratifying as they were new and astonishing.
Without laying any claim to any such discovery
as  that  wonderful  fountain  of youth  which
tempted the too  credulous Ponce de Leon to
brave the dangers of an unknown sea, I may,
nevertheless, claim a discovery, which for cen-
turies has baffled  the skill and research of the
most eminent philosophers and sages which the
world has ever produced.  I have succeeded in
doing this without in any degree whatever draw-
ing  upon the  reserved forces of life, so  as to
induce exhaustion and prostration after each re-
curring effort;  but its effects are so gently and
gradually tonic and stimulating as to give per-
manent vigor  and tone to  every part of the
system.   Old  age is  thus  shorn of half  its
terrors, and life, indeed, remains a perfect bless-
ing to its  very close.  Not  only are all the pro-
creative faculties  restored and invigorated by
these wonderful remedies, but every part of the
        4 
*)0           THE GENTLEMAN'-

body is made to share in their healthfid and life
giving properties. I  would not thus speak so
confidently and  assuringly had I not witnessed
in numberless instances the complete realization
of all which  I have  here described.  It  is not
yet  three months since I was  called upon by a
gentlemen of over sixty years of age, whose cir-
cumstances, in relation to  property and  family
affairs rendered  it highly  expedient  that  he
should take to himself a wife, after twice having
become a widower.  Although he felt, as he told
me, in regard to that matter, the danger as well
as what he considered the impropriety of uniting
himself to one so many years younger than him-
self, a9 was the lady for whom  he felt a decided
preference, he could  not  well resist the inclina-
tion he felt to be  governed in the matter by the
motives of choice exclusively, provided he could
feel assured that subsequent events, anticipated
from conscious debility and impotence by reason
of his own advanced age, could be so controlled
by medical skill as would obviate all danger of
disagreement and infelicity between them after
the marriage ceremony.  I gave him the reasons
of my strong conviction that this could be satis-
factorily accomplished for  him, and he immed- 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           M

diately  subjected himself to the regimen  and
treatment which I imposed.  I found in him a
most submissive and docile patient, who unscru-
pulously and faithfully followed the directions
I gave him; and I had the gratification as well
as the pleasure  of seeing  him, in less than three
months from the time of his first application to
me, rejoicing in the possession of the woman of
his choice.  He subsequently informed me, with a
countenance beaming with gratitude and thanks,
that there was not a happier or a more contented
couple on the face of the earth; and he attributed
to me, and the  truly  happy effects of the medi-
cines I  had prepared for him, the happiness
which he then enjoyed.   Indeed,  I  might cite
other cases  equally as interesting,  but  I do not
feel  at liberty to particularize,  lest I  might
wound the sensitiveness of those who have con-
fided to me, in my professional capacity, those
matters which I cannot conscientiously nor hon-
orably refer to, even to  encourage and benefit
others in a similar way.  Let  every one, how-
ever, be assured that age no longer forms any
impediment to  an  enjoyment of all the physical
functions of our being, and  that wedlock,  so far
from being shunned as a severe and unhappy test 
f>2           THE GENTLEMAN'S

of the virile forces, resulting only in failure and
mortification, may now  be consummated with
all  the assurance, hopefulness,  and  ardor  of
youth.
  The reader will  have observed that  in all the
foregoing pages I have carefully avoided entering
into details, or giving way to that style of com-
position which  seems  almost inseparable from
the medical profession.  I have not, by a prolix
and confused use of medical and pharmaceutical
terms, perplexed his  mind nor sought to inspire
an  opinion of my skill  by an exhibition of pro-
fessional and technical terms, only understood
by the regular student and philologist. I have
rather sought to intimate,  in plain  and readily
understood language, matters and subjects upon
which a great deal of ignorance unfortunately
prevails.  I have sought to point out the dangers
and perils  arising from  certain causes which are
to-day working a  vast amount of evil and dis-
tress throughout the  whole  country.
  I have also called to  your attention  the ready
and certain means of cure which I possess, and
of which all may avail themselves at a moderate
expense, without incurring the least danger  of
relapse or  exposure.  And, finally, I invite you 
             MEDICAL  ADVISER.            .")o

to test an experience of thirty years' successful
practice, in which I have more sucessfully treated
every disease to which humanity is liable than any
other physician in New England.  My arrange-
ments and provisions for this  purpose are most
extensive, and peculiarly adapted  to suit and
please the taste of the most delicate and fastidi-
ous.  My reception rooms  are ample, and even
luxuriously furnished; and patients, whilst wait-
ing for, and during consultation, are  free from all
inquisitive observation.  My medicines, which are
all prepared under  my own immediate supervi-
sion,  are procured for me by  herbalists of rare
skill,  and imported for  my exclusive use; and
whilst I devote every faculty I possess to the
relief and cure of those who  place themselves
under my care, I am particular, also, to so regu-
late and apportion the price of my services that
none, however unfortunate, may be driven away
by the fear of excessive or exorbitant charges.
My consultation rooms and medical office are  at
No. 48 Howard Street, Boston, where I may be
found at all hours during the day, and to which
all  communications  for advice  and  medicines
sihould be particularly addressed.
           FREDERICK  MORRILL, M. D. 
:a
THE GENTLEMAX'is
               APPENDIX.

I  PRESUME that there are many who, on
    opening this book, expected to find a num-
ber of  prescriptions for the cure of diseases;
also directions for taking the prescribed reme-
dies, and rules for diet, etc., etc., while taking
them.  Here let me say, that whoever looks for
that, in any  properly-prepared treatise of this
kind, will  always be  disappointed.  I would
most cheerfully send prescriptions to sufferers,
but it would be  utterly impracticable, for the
reason that the roots, herbs, and barks, which I
use in curing  diseases, are imported by myself,
from foreign countries, for my own practice;
and very many of them,  the  most efficacious,      i
cannot  be obtained from any druggist in this
country.  The reader will readily see that any
prescription, under such circumstances, would
be  worthless  to  him.   I not only import my
herbs, barks, roots, and medicinal plants, but I,
myself, prepare them for use.  I do this that I 
             MEDICAL ADVISER.           55

may be sure, beyond all doubt, that my patients
get the pure article, without any adulteration,
or any possibility of mistake;  and to this fact I
attribute, in a  great  measure,  my success in
treating and curing disease.  The concentrated
form in  which I prepare them  enables me to
send them to any part of the country, by mail
or by express, at trifling expense; so that there
would be really no reason  for furnishing pre-
scriptions to my patients, even if they could get
them compounded by the druggist.
  I have  thought  that I could not do a better
service to my readers than  to insert, by way of
an appendix, a selection from  the large corres-
pondence I  am daily receiving from persons
seeking my advice, or such as  have  been under
my care.  These letters are not only calculated
to  show  the embarrassments under which  in-
valids frequently labor in regard to the choice
of  a physician, when  seeking  to  regain lost
health, but  narrating, as  they do, actual cases
attempted to be  described by the sufferers them-
selves, they may enable the reader to compare
his  own with them, and  to judge  whether he
may not, with every hope  of relief, resort to the
same means of cure. 
56
THE GENTLEMAN'S
  Whilst, as a general rule, I usually destroy all
correspondence of a  private nature, especially
all  such  as I  consider that the writers would
prefer not to be in danger of a  perusal by any
other than myself, there are cases which I con-
sider of too interesting a  character, and which
required a degree of care, skill, and attention,
to perfect a cure, that I have, in the interest of
humanity, preserved such  an outline of them
as would enable me to refer to, and recall what-
ever of importance  might  be connected with
them, for my future  guidance in similar cases.
In such  circumstances. I preserve only trans-
cripts of all  the correspondence,  destroying
the original, whilst I erase all names and other
means of exposure,  of matters which  might
wound the sensibilities of the writers.
  The subjoined letters I have selected because
they represent, better than I could otherwise do,
different grades  and classes of physical disa-
bility produced by causes particularly treated
upon in  this book, and  which,  more than any
other class of diseases, I have been called upon
to treat.   From thousands of similar  endorse-
ments of the  happy  results of my system  of
medical treatment, I am  emboldened in claim- 
                 MEDICAL ADVISER.           57

    ing for  it a  superiority  over all others.  The
    living  witnesses  whom  I daily meet  and
    recognize as of those who have, in their per-
    sons, experienced the healing and  life-preserv-
    ing efficacy  of my  remedies,  and who,  from
    being debilitated, broken down, despairing in-
    valids, looking forward  to death  as the only
    termination  of their sufferings, are  to-day in
    the enjoyment of all the blessings which health
    can confer, and amongst our most useful, active,
'   and enterprising citizens.  With such examples
    before them, no one should hesitate or delay a
    single hour in  securing  to  himself the means
    of recovery and restoration which I am fully
    prepared to offer him.
      From  the  fact that I have, in this little vol-
    ume, called the reader's attention chiefly to those
    disorders arising from an indiscreet and over-
    tasked  indulgence  of the  sexual and procrea-
i    tive faculties, some of my readers may be led to
    infer  that I limit  my  practice exclusively to
    them.   This would be a mistake.  Being a reg-
    ularly-educated physician, my range of practice
    is not restricted to any particular branch of my
    profession, although I  have  devoted  a  large
    share of my attention to the investigation  and 
58            THE GENTLEMAN'S

study of the  utero-genital  organs,  under the
belief that  to them  might be  traced,  much
oftener than is generally supposed, a large share
of those diseases  which annually disables, and
eventually carries off, so many thousands of our
most  promising and  interesting young  men.
Consumption,  diseases of the heart  and liver,
rheumatism, imperfections of sight and hearing,
baldness, and many other complaints intimately
connected with, and  in  a large degree owing
their  early  development  to causes directly re-
sulting from a too-frequent violation of nature's
laws in this very thing, are subjects  in which I
feel myself fully justified in recommending my
remedies,  and  in  which  I  have been equally
successful in  my  treatment,   To  either  sex,
male  or female, requiring medical or surgical
treatment, I am prepared to offer every facility
and convenience whilst prescribing  for every
case of disease or accident to which the human
frame is liable.  Medicines carefully prepared
by myself, neatly and securely packed for trans-
portation to  any part of the world, with every
needed direction  for  their use, as the case  may
require, will be promptly forwarded to such as
may wish to avail themselves of my professional
services. 
MEDICAL ADVISER.
50
              [Letter from a Gentleman.]

                   G-------, Me. Sept. — 180
   Dr. Frederic Morrill:
     Dear Sir—It is under feelings of the deepest
   despondency  and mortification that I address
   you this letter. • I have long contemplated doing
   it, but my resolution has failed me whenever  I
   have sat down to accomplish it.  I am, however,
   reduced to that degree of hopelessness, and, I
 t  may add, helplessness, that unless  I  do  some-
   thing, and that most speedily, I shall be so com-
   pletely shorn of all energy and  manhood as to
   be utterly incapable of making  myself under-
   stood by  you or any one else.  You  already,
   I imagine, comprehend  the difficulty under
   which I labor.  I am now about eighteen years  •
   of age, and have been, almost since I arrived at
   the  age of puberty, addicted to that most horri-
   ble  of all soul and body destroying  vice.— self-
'   abuse.   First indulging in the practice at rare
   intervals,  It has grown  upon me as I have ad-
   vanced  in life,  inflicting  new  tortures, and
   throwing  open  before me vistas of future tor-
   ments, which combine  to  render the present,
   past, and future, in the endurance and anticipa
   tion, too terrible to bear or describe.   I was led 
60
THE GENTLEMAN'S
  into this vile habit, as all boys are, by bad ex-
  ample and  associations with those who, being
  older than myself, ought to have known  better.
  I did not then, as I do now, attribute the many
  painful and depressing ills to which I was sub-
  ject, to  the physical derangements occasioned
  by  this vice.  I had, I think, a scrofulous taint,
  inherited from my parents.  This became quite
  early developed, and for years  I  was afflicted
  with a weakness and inflamation of the eyes,
  which at times was  almost insupportable.  Cos-
  tiveness, and constipation also, always rendered
  it necessary that I should be taking some laxa-
  tive and cathartic  medicine.  When I resorted
  to medical  advice,  not  one  of the many physi-
. cians whom I  consulted ever made the inquiry
  as to my habits, or suggested the possibility that
  I was paying the penalty of solitary vice.  Had
  my occupation or pursuits been such as to afford
  me  constant daily labor and exercise in the open
  air, I  have no  doubt it would have been far
  better  for me; but  since my fourteenth year I
  have been a student, either at home or abroad,
  and although  I  have enjoyed every advantage
  and opportunity, to-day feel myself utterly in-
  competent and incapable of profiting by them. 
MEDICAL  ADVISER.
01
A loss of memory and  a lack of  energy, in-
ability to any continuous exercise of the reason-
ing powers, a  want of tenacity of purpose,  a
confusion of ideas, timidity, bashfulness, and  a
constant apprehension of coming evil, so besets
me that  I  sometimes wisli that I might die to
escape it.   Indeed, I have often  thought of
suicide, and am sometimes seriously tempted to
resort to it as a relief from my troubles.  I have
read books and treatises upon  the subject, and
have, times without number,  resolved,  nay,
sworn, to abandon the  practice.  But I find to
my sorrow that I have not got  the  strength of
will and purpose to do this.   To such a state of
debility am I reduced that I find I am powerless
to carry into effect any resolution whatever; and
I am at length satisfied that a  man  left alone,
unaided, in this condition, is entirely unable, of
himself, to emerge from the depths into which he
has fallen.  I have hitherto kept this to myself,
fearing, or rather ashamed, to make a confidant
of any one.  But  I  can do so  no longer.  The
continued drains upon my system, and the very
foundation of my powers of manhood, have been
so long continued, that I have become the invol-
untary victim of all those ruinous consequences 
62
THE GENTLEMAN'S
which flow from such a cause; cold night sweats,
a troublesome  cough, a burning and feverish
skin, disturbed sleep, and dreams too horrid and
too *  *  *  * to narrate, admonish  me, that
if I do not soon obtain relief, the attempt to do
so will be too late.  I have therefore resolved to
break through the  reserve and moody silence
behind which I have hitherto shrouded myself,
and, cost what it may, throw myself into the
hands of some one  in whom  I can place confi-  .
dence, and submit entirely to his  guidance  and
direction until  I  am  either restored to my for-
mer self or  laid  at rest  in the grave.  I have
heard much of you, of your willingness to un-
dertake such cases as mine, and the great suc-
cess which attends your course of practice,  and
the remedies you give.  If you  think you can
cure me, consider me as your patient from thia
moment.  Not wishing to occupy your time for
nothing, I enclose  --------dollars for which   \
please give me credit, and write to me at once
what I am to do.
         I am, very respectfully, &e.
                        S------ W-------.
  Note. — The reader will clearly perceive from  the
foregoing letter that this was not only a most distressing 
MEDICAL ADVISER.
03
case, but that, notwithstanding the writer had intended
to give me such a detailed statement as would enable me
to prescribe for him directly,  yet, on a more careful ex-
amination,  he will  see  that there was not that circum-
stantial detail of particulars necessary for my guidance
in a case  of so much importance. Apprised of the un-
happy young gentleman's inability at that time to visit
me at my office, I wrote to him some two or three times,
suggesting topics upon which I desired to be more fully
informed.  In the course of a fortnight I had succeeded .
in perfecting  quite  a satisfactory diagnosis  of his case,
and immediately put in active operation the course of
treatment I had marked out.  It  was not to be expected
that  habits so confirmed, and maladies so aggravated,
could be  at once broken up.  Experience had too often
shown me  that  this class  of patients, however deter-
mined and resolved they might express themselves to be
in the beginning, were not always to  be  relied upon in
carrying  out  your views in regard to them, and that not
unfrequently  they  defeated your best efforts  in their
behalf, by  but  a half compliance with your directions,
A temporary relief, and a slight change for the better,
would give rise to a  presumptuous  desire to break
through the rules you had prescribed for their guidance,
and before you suspected It, they would complain of the
want of efficacy of  your treatment, and  fall back into
the old line of complaint and despair.
  But I am not in the practice of  letting patients foil me
in my labors to effect their cure, in that way; and it ii
at the very moment of their greatest discouragement
that I feel that I am beginning to get them well in hand, 
64
THE  GENTLEMAN'S
and that, when they find they are passed all hope, except
through outside help, I am most certain that I have them
on the sure road to recovery and better days.  And so it
was with this young man.  By  encouragement and per-
suasions I soon won his entire confidence, and had the
satisfaction  of witnessing his  gradual  progress  from
almost total prostration to renewed vigor and health.  I
did not  even  resort to the  expedient of a change  of
residence, nor to  his giving up his books.  My medical
treatment was directed towards subduing and soothing
the nervous irritation which his habits had engendered,
and to strengthen and give tone to every faculty which
had felt the debilitating  effects of  his former indi-
gencies.   From the  constancy of my correspondence
with him, I did not allow the slightest change or symp-
tom to escape me; and although I had never seen him, I
felt as assured of the beneficial changes which  were
taking place as though  I had him daily in my presence.
Gradually the style of his correspondence, as well as
the steadiness  of his hand and eye, indicated by his pen-
manship,  plainly  showed  the great improvement going
on, until at length I was surprised by a call from him to
thank me in person for what I had done for him.
  Let the reader imagine  to himself, a  hale, portly
young man, bearing about him every mark of a healthy
and almost perfected manhood; a frank, open, and in-
genuous countenance, that shrinks from no scrutiny, and
a bright, sparkling eye that almost fascinates you by its
beaming lustre and  intelligence,  and you have before
you the patient whose case I have just been describing.
He was thoroughly cured.   Every faculty  of both soul 
              MEDICAL ADVISER.            05

 and body  appeared to be fully  adequate to all the
 exigencies of an honorable and successful future, to
 which  his means, and his  family and social relations,
 would  justify him to aspire. I am happy to  say that,
 his subsequent career has  realized the highest expecta-
 tions I had formed of him.  Equally distinguished at the
 bar of  his adopted State, as in the national councils, he
 is,  at  this time, one of the most promising and rising
 men in the country.

   The following letter  is from a  middle-aged
 gentleman whose early  life had been marked by
 misfortunes of no ordinary severity, which had
 preyed  upon his health  to  that  extent as  to
 occasionally unfit him  for all business occupa-
 tions,  as also to  render him  incapable  of any
 mental  enjoyments  whatever.   Strange  as it
 may appear, this gentleman's  appearance  in-
 dicated in no very marked degree the infirmities
 of which he complained. He was rather pletho-
 ric and  full  in form,  and his  countenance was
 more  like that of a " bon vivant"  than other-
 wise.  To one unaccustomed to read the " human
 face divine," he  would have  been  taken  for
 almost anybody else than one who was suffering
 under  a  most complicated form of disease, hav-
ing  its origin in a criminal indulgence  so vile
and sensual as to excite our horror and aversion
            5 
66          THE GENTLEMAN'S

towards  one, who,  in the  form of man, could
surrender himself up to  such gross and  un-
natural appetites and desires;

                              B------, 180
Dear Sir:
  In the  short interview which I had with you,
yesterday,  I  perceived that  I staggered your
faith in my truthfulness when I stated to you the
troubles which oppress me, and which, notwith-
standing  the fair and rosy blush of health I wear,
renders life almost an unsupportable  burden.
You were correct in your opinion that my case
was  an abnormal one, dependent  upon causes
which required a frank avowal on my part be-
fore  you could  venture  to prescribe  for  me.
Although not particularly troubled with  any
excess of squeamishness in matters of this kind,
I must confess that  I felt reluctant to expose to
you, verbally, the true character of my mental
and physical deformities.   Did I tell you that I
was a brute, I should come far short of convey-
ing to you any just idea of myself.  I am  a
brute, embodying every animal instinct, with all
the reasoning, cunning, planning, and executing
faculties  of the human being in their   highest 
                 medical adviser.           67

     degree and perfection.  A native of the south of
     Europe, and  inheriting all the hot and fiery in-
     stincts of my race, I have  ever  sought the
     gratification  of every unholy  and unlicensed
     passion to which the creature, man, may be en-
     slaved.
       At a very early age, even in my boyhood, I
     broke through every bound of religion, morality,
     and blood itself, to gratify the intense desires
     which overwhelmed me.  This  ever-consuming
     fire seemed  to  derive new  force  and energy
     upon what it fed on, when satiety and disgust
     led me to search out new sources of gratifica-
     tion, until the most unnatural tastes and propen-
     sities  took possession of  me.  Consorting  with
     men, and even animals, became far more  pre-
     ferable than with the fairest and most enticing
     of the opposite sex; and  I became so addicted
     to it. that I  felt myself as, indeed, that " pesti-
'     Wee which walketh at noon day," as, vainpyre
     like, I fattened upon the victims I destroyed.
     These horrible  and  unnatural gratifications
     seems to have had the effect of blending and
     incorporating their  mischievous and deadening
     influence throughout every faculty of my being;
     shame, morality, and virtue lost their distinctive 
68
THE GENTLEMAN'S
qualities in my mind, and  gluttony, intemper-
ance, and excess  of every  kind have usurped
complete mastery over me.  One who knows me
well has frequently intimated that I  must look
to moral rather than to medical influences to
change me from what I am.  But I know better.
Moral effort can hold no successful conflict with
the overwhelming physical clamorings  of an
organization like  mine.  " A sound  mind in a
sound body," is a maxim of wisdom, but, the
sound body must come first.  Insanity is, I pre-
sume, the consequence of a diseased brain; and
although a diseased brain  requires  the  aid of
moral forces to its proper  readjustment,  yet a
nice and just adaptation of sanitary  appliances
must precede  as  well as accompany them, to
render them available.
  Impotency, emasculation,  and sterility admits
of a ready cure at the hands of the skilful physi-
cian, who, like yourself, has made this branch of
physiological  science his particular  study.  If
excitants, tonics, and stimulants promote action
in the one class of cases, why should not  anti-
phlogistics, anodynes,  and kindred remedies
quench  those  fires  which   turn  man into a
demon, and renders  life one constant rebellion 
MEDICAL adviser.
69
against everything pure and good.  I have great
faith in you, doctor, hence this disclosure.  Are
you willing to try your skill in this strange case ?
I will  submit to anything, do anything, that I
may once enjoy the tranquility and self-posses-
sion of  perfectly  cool-headed manhood.  My
means are ample, and they are at your disposal;
all I ask in return is, that I may be  enabled to
go forth amongst  my fellow-men  without that
crushing  sense  of moral degradation  which is
now more  oppressive than any " fearful looking
for of fiery indignation," in the future, can possi-
bly be.  Any encouragement  you can give me
will  materially influence my movements for the
future, and I will most  gladly avail myself of
your earliest intimation  that  a  call  from me
would be agreeable.
       With great esteem, I am yours, etc.
                           L------F------.
  Note.  This gentleman had by no means overstated
his case.  At my suggestion he took apartments in my
vicinity where I could  daily observe his conduct. It
was  clearly evident that his  misfortunes  were chiefly
owing to a morbid state  of the whole system, similar to
that which in some persons manifests itself in a ravenous
appetite, which  can  only be appeased by devouring 
70
THE  GENTLEMAN S
enormous quantities of the most indigestible and revolt-
ing substances for food.   I  felt satisfied that the  case
was a fair one for medical treatment, and  governed my-
self accordingly.  It would be useless for me to attempt
to describe  to the  nonprofessional reader the course I
adopted, and readily submitted to by my patient, to exor-
cise this " unclean spirit" which possessed him.  Suffice
it to say, that, after an unusual degree of application on
my part, I had the satisfaction at length of reducing the
"fair proportions  of  his  ruling  passion,"  until he
sobered down into a rational human being.  Bereft of no
quality, nor in anywise shorn of his proper manhood, he
has become a model of regularity, moderation, and of
all the gentler virtues.  His striking manly beauty still
marks him  as a general favorite, whilst those coarser
features which formerly marred him, have disappeared
forever.  My  last letter from him, dated several years
ago, informed me, that at length he had settled down, re-
joicing in the society of an amiable companion, and  with
an undisturbed temperament and tranquility of soul which
promised  to compensate him, in part, for the  tumultu-
ous and stormy past.
  I have hesitated long before I could persuade myself
to give  place to the foregoing in these pages.  But on       1
reflection I felt that, as it was a true record, and repre-
sented a class by no means rare  or uncommon, I would
not withold it, from any apprehensions of the criticisms
of the incredulous or narrow-minded.  Human nature is
the same everywhere, beset by the same temptations, and
destroyed by the same vices; and the medical man, better
than  all others, knows to  what extent the justification
exists for calling attention to this gentleman's case. 
             medical advisee.           71

                 [Letter Third.]
                               D------, ISO
Doctor Morrill,
        Boston, Mass.:
  Dear Sir. — I enclose a gentleman's  card,
with his endorsement upon the back of it, well
known, to  3Tou, as my introduction.   For  some
months past I have been  in search of a skilful
medical man, whom I might safely consult in a
matter involving not only  my own happiness, but
the peace, health, and, possibly, the life itself of
my wife.  For several years she has been an  in-
valid.   She is now thirty-three years of age, and
we have been married upwards of twelve years.
Shortly after the birth of our child, a son of nearly
eleven years of age, her health began to  decline,
since which time, notwithstanding the many phy-
sicians to whom she has applied, and the various
means resorted to for relief, she has continued in
a state  of debility so nearly bordering  on down-
right sickness as to  be seldom capable of attend-
ing to  any of the duties,  or enjoying any of the
comforts, much  less the pleasures, of society, or
even of life itself.  So repeated has been  her fail-
ures to obtain beneficial  medical aid, that, long
since she  gave  up  all hope of obtaining  it  at the 
72
the gentleman's
 hands of any of those physicians whom we have
 been in the habit of regarding as our  oracles in
 all matters of this  kind.  She declares  herself
 disgusted, and wearied out by this constant suc-
 cession of potions, pills, and powders, tonics, stim-
 ulants, and alteratives, as they are termed, and
 has about made up her mind to resign herself to
 her fate, whatever that may be.   This is  not  so
 much to be wondered at when I inform you that
 there is hardly a physician of any note in the city
 with whom she has not consulted, many of them
 repeatedly, but all of them to little purpose.  My
 friend, who so highly recommends you, has en-
 deavored to prevail upon her to consult you; but
 with a perversity, if not peculiar to her  sex, at
 least strongly characteristic of her infirmities, she
 persists in her* resolution henceforth  to  let the
 doctors alone.  This all might do very well, if she
 alone was the sufferer.   But I, being  a  party
 quite as much interested as she is, have resolved
 that no efforts shall remain untried to enable her
 to regain her health, and that I may have restored
 to me the society and companionship of a wife to
 whom I am most fondly attached.  I cannot see
 her thus, day by day, sinking into a prematnre
grave, whilst there remains the least earthly pos- 
medical adviser.
73
sibility of rescuing her from her present perilous
condition.  I have, therefore, determined to give
to you, myself, such facts concerning her case as I
am conversant with; and as I have been for many
years past, to a great extent, her principal nurse,
I am not certain but that I can give you all the
description necessary to enable  you  to  form  a
pretty just opinion of whom you are to treat, and
the troubles you are expected to eradicate. Soon
after the birth of our child my wife's health com-
menced gradually to give way, and she filled with
difficulty the offices  of a mother, against my re-
monstrances ; she declined to resign her child to
other hands during its infancy, and, although no
immediate consequences were apparent, yet it was
evident that her physical powers were  not equal
to the burden she assumed.  Whatever may have
been the causes, thenceforward there  seemed to
be a general breaking up and falling to pieces of
her  entire system.   Disorders   of the  womb,
breasts, and a general weakness of all the genital
organs indicated but too surely an enfeebled  and
relaxed  condition of the  system, calling for the
immediate application of remedial measures of
some sort.   The physician whom  I called did not
seem to understand the  case, or, if  he did, he 
74            THE GENTLEMAN'S

miserably failed in his selection of remedies; for,
instead of getting better, her maladies assumed a
more dangerous  and  complicated  form.   She
ceased to become a mother, and seemed to be be-
set by all those disorders which call so loudly for
our  sympathy and aid.  Labor and exercise  oi
any  kind become  too irksome to be borne, whilst
headaches, indigestion, pains  in the  abdomen,
great susceptibility to  atmospheric changes, ex-
treme irregularity in all the  natural  functions,
bleedings, and other discharges, combined to de-
press her spirits and undermine  her strength, until
she is now but a wreck of her former self.  With
this  wearing away of the physical forces  there is
also  a decay of the mental faculties still more dis-
tressing to witness.   She has fever to a consider-
able  degree, yet the absence of the hectic  flush  of
the cheek, or cough, or other usual signs  of con-
sumption, leads ine to indulge the belief that her
disease is not consumption in any of its forms.
  Physicians have repeatedly intimated consump-
tion, spinal disease, or  some ovarian  complaint,
and  have, in turn, treated her for all  these; and
yet,  the same  emaciation, loss  of appetite, dis-
charges of blood and serum, disinclination to ef-
fort  of any kind, and repugnance to all  society, 
MEDICAL ADVISER.
continues as at first.  Were I not afraid to enter-
tain the thought or pronounce the word, I should
say that imbecility was the proper term to employ
as descriptive of the condition to which she ap-
pears to be  now fast  tending.  She  makes  less
complaint than formerly, and manifests  less solic-
itude for her restoration to health; and I fear there
are grounds for  this in the almost passive state to
which she is reduced.   I wish it were  so that I
could induce her to undergo  the journey neces-
sary to see  you, but  that,  is entirely out of the
question.  From what I have written can  you
form any j ust idea of her disease, and would you
venture to take her case in hand ?  Could you do
this, doctor, I should  consider myself fortunate in
having secured  your services in her behalf.   En-
closed please find a fee, which I trust will be sat-
isfactory.
   Your early reply will be awaited for with  deep
 anxiety, and gratefully appreciated by
           Most respectfully, your  obt. serv.,
  If the reader has perused this book with any
degree of attention, and failed to recognize in the
above description, by her husband, of Mrs.  M.'s 
76           THE gentleman's

case, a clear and decided case of self-abuse, then
I cannot give him credit for ordinary penetration
and acuteness.
  I introduce this letter, and the case it describes,
in order to show to the reader a peculiar  charac-
teristic of this propensity, not alone confined to
females, but shared alike by both sexes.   Here
was a lady who had lived under  the same roof,
shared the  same bed, and otherwise cohabited
with an affectionate, confiding, and devoted hus-
band  for thirteen years; and yet, all this time,
had been able to elude  his watchfulness  to that
extent as to completely disarm suspicion itself;
whilst  he,  hapless  husband that  he was, in the
supposition that his wife was the victim of some
deep-seated and  occult  disorder, far beyond the
reach of ordinary skill, and, as it has been shown,
not even thought of by the many doctors who
had attended her, was about to  surrender her to
the grave, as past the  possibility of cure, never
dreamed that his wife was simply a masturbation-
ist, and as such, as fit a subject for medical treat-
ment as though she was simply affected by catarrh,
or any other analogous disease.  'Tis true that she
had inflicted serious and almost fatal injury upon
herself; but she was not yet past hope of restora- 
MEDICAL ADVISER.
77
tion.  The striking feature of the case is the cun-
ning, secrecy, and deception resorted to by the sub-
jects of this vice. Strange as may appear, the habit
seems to sharpen all the faculties of concealment
and duplicity, whilst it deadens  and paralyzes
every moral sentiment, and leads its votaries to
deceive and to shun their best friends  and  most
intimate associates.  Even the prospects of relief
are disregarded, and the kindest  purposes  of the
physician defeated by a concealment and evasion
rarely resorted to  under any other circumstances.
With this patient neither stratagem nor circumlo-
cution would be available.  My only course was
to attack her with plainness of speech and direct-
ness of inquiry.  With her husband's permission
I wrote to her, stating, not my suspicions merely,
but charging her directly with being addicted to
solitary vices, and attributing all her  maladies and
sufferings  to  them  alone.   Whether she  ever
showed that letter to her husband, is more than I
can say. But in a short time afterwards I received
a letter directly from herself, begging me to pre-
scribe for her, as she was " satisfied that I under-
stood her case, and would do for her better than
anyone else."
   Of course I immediately acceded to her re- 
 78           the gentleman's

 quest, and, carefully protecting myself against
 any surprises or duplicity on  her  part, I sub-
 jected her  to a  rigid and thorough course of
 treatment, both medicinal and hygienic, until,
 both from  her  own and her  husband's  state-
 ments, she had completely regained her former
 good health.  Subsequently, on becoming per-
 sonally acquainted  with her, she informed me
 that, up to that moment, her husband had re-
 mained in  entire  ignorance  of the true  cause
 and nature of her  complaints; and  she thanked  '
 me over and over again, not only for the decided
 steps I had taken, but for the discreet, cautious,
 as well as successful manner in  which  I had
 treated her, and relieved her of all her troubles.
  I  might continue, with the materials in my
 possession, to illustrate by letters and  testimo-
 nials without number, the great success wrhich
 has  ever  attended that system  of treatment
 which I  have  adopted  in those cases usually   I
 denominated "delicate," and which forms so
 large a share of those which afflict mankind.
 Notwithstanding the country,  and  our   large
 cities especially, is literally crowded by those
who make large pretensions to extraordinary
skill, and  style themselves " doctors," whose
only claim to that  distinction is that they are 
MEDICAL ADVISER.
70
able  to keep up a standing advertisement in
some of our newspapers, but whose real attain-
ments  in medical science can be measured by
an 0.  I have felt that in the open, liberal, and
faithful exercise of  a  specialty made  honorable
by such names as Abercroinbie, Hunter, Bell, Ri-
cord, Acton, and many others whose learned in-
vestigations and writings upon this subject have
done so much  to benefit mankind, I need not
fear, nor shrink from being placed on any degree
in the  scale of " professional respectability," to
which  my  professional brethern may choose to
assign  me.   My tribunal is the public  at
large, and by its  judgment I  am content to
abide.   It  has  been  truly said that  " nothing-
succeeds so well as success."  Judged by that
criterion I do not  hesitate to compare myself
with any of my compeers, certain as  I am that,
in point of numbers cured, I excell them all.
  In conclusion, let me  say that, although I do
not consider this book by any means as an adver-
tising medium, but solely what it claims to be,—
The  Gentleman's  Medical  Adviser,—
 yet I believe my readers  will  concur with me in
the strict propriety of calling attention to  the
great facilities I possess for the  care andljtreat-
ment of the sick at my extensive establishment 
80   THE GENTLEMAN'S MEDICAL  ADVISER.

No. 48 Howard Street, Boston, Mass.  Secluded
from general observation, in one of  the pleasant-
est streets of the city, with easy access to all pub-
lic  conveyances, and in  the immediate neighbor-
hood of the chief objects of public interest, the Mall,
the Common, the Public Garden, the Horticultural
Rooms, the Museum, the Reservoir, and the State
House, I claim for it advantages  of location pos-
sessed by no other private  establishment  in the
city.   Good nursing, careful  and faithful attend-
ance, and medical  treatment  under my own im-
mediate supervision,  with  all remedies directly
from my own laboratory, will ensure to  patients
all that science, art, and skill can offer for their
comfort and relief.   I prefer to confer orally with
my patients, if possible.  But if  that be impossi-
ble, or inconvenient, letters, plainly and distinctly
written, stating  the nature of  the disease, the
age and occupation of the patient, addressed to
me, containing two dollars, consultation fee,
will be promptly attended to.  In order to avoid
any mistakes and delay, please address all  letters
as follows:—    F. MORRILL, M. D.
                    No. 48 Howard Street,
                              Boston, Mass.

               The  End. 
              REMOVAL.

   Since the publication of this book Dr. Morrill
 has removed to No. 8 Bulfinch Street, and taken
 charge of The People's Medical Institute,
 ! nearly opposite the Revere House, where he will
 ■ at all times be found prepared to treat profession-
 ally,  confidentially and with complete success,
} every kind of disease in men, women and children
 however aggravated or of long  standing it may
 be.   He gives especial attention to all diseases of
 the generative organs in both sexes, such as Gon-
 orrhoea, Seminal weakness  or Nocturnal Emis-
 sions, Strictures. Gleet,  Chancres, Syphilis and
 Syphilitic diseases of the Skin. Bones, Cartilages,
i Eyes or Head, also, all cases of Female weakness,
  irregularities, or suppression of usual and neees-
i  sary discharges. Pregnancy and diseases  inci-
1  dent to it, or its prevention.when from ill health
  or other sufficient causes  it  is not desirable to
  have  children,  &c,  &c.   In  fact in  all cases
  where the advice and assistance of an expericn ced
  and skillful physician is deemed necessary Dr.
1  Morrill will be found entirely reliable and sat-
  isfactory.
    $^= The poor will be attended gratis, on pro-
  ducing  satisfactory  evidence of their inability
  to pay.
    ~|f= All letter* and correspondence will be re-
  garded in strict, confidence,  and  promptly, an-
  swered.
    US' Be careful to address F.  Morrill, M. D., No. 3
  Bulfinch Street, Boston, Mass., to prevent imposition or
  mistake, as he lias no connection with any other office
  or establishment in the city.
    Boston, March 1, 1S70. 
Df^.   Morrill's  pFFicE,
48 Howard Street, Boston, Mass.
0316
12